It will be this Saturday, August 12, when some twenty representative groups of Bolivian folk dances will tour the streets of the Salamanca neighborhood accompanying the Virgin of Urkupiña, patron saint of Bolivia’s National Integration. As every year, and there are now eight with this one, the Bolivian community residing in Santa Cruz honors its national patron saint with activities around her image that begin today, at 7:30 p.m., with a talk by the parish priest of the church of Nuestra Lady of Fatima, where a replica of the Virgin of Urkupiña rests. Before, the Rosary will be prayed, I pray that it will be repeated on Thursday at 7:00 p.m., and on Friday at 5:15 p.m.
Tomorrow, Thursday, the activity will move to the La Arboleda Neighborhood Association, also at 7:30 p.m.
It will be on Friday, at 6:45 p.m., when the offering and demonstration of some of the Bolivian folk dance groups take place, for Saturday, August 12, to celebrate a mass at 11:00 a.m., and then the procession in honor of the image of Urkupiña, now with all the groups. The pilgrimage through the streets of Poeta Tomás Morales, De los Sueños, EL Olvido and Febles Paco Campos, will be accompanied by twenty groups, each made up of about 30 people.
Nélida Velásquez is one of the organizers of this celebration, through her group Tinkus Waynas del Toco, which this year is responsible for the festivities (each year this responsibility falls on a different group). “We have been organizing this party for seven years, this will be the eighth, and it is already a tradition not only for those of us who live in the Salamanca neighborhood, but for all the residents of the Island,” she details.
This year they have the collaboration of groups from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria “who have helped us with the flowers on the altar”.
